Ballet Gets Graphic: SLJ Talks with Siena Cherson Siegel

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Joan Oleck -- School Library Journal, 10/11/2006

Graphic novels outside Japan have largely overlooked young girl readers—until now. To Dance: A Ballerina's Graphic Novel (S & S/Atheneum/Richard Jackson Bks.) chronicles author Siena Cherson Siegel's childhood studies at the School of American Ballet, where, for 12 years, she pursued her love of dance even as she sought refuge from her parents' painful divorce.

Set during the 1980s heyday of ballet, To Dance takes us backstage to the New York City Ballet's cloistered world with peeks at legends George Balanchine, Mikhail Baryshnikov, and Suzanne Farrell. Siegel, now 39, performed in more than a hundred ballets before her own career was sidelined at age 18 by injury. In her book, she reconnects with those heady days through her text and the art of her husband, Mark Siegel, editorial director of the graphic novel imprint, First Second, and illustrator, previously, of Seadogs: An Epic Ocean Operetta and Long Night Moon (both S & S, 2004).

How did you decide to tell your story in graphic novel form? Did your husband's work influence you?

It definitely did. Although I had been thinking about writing a book about my experiences in training and dance for a long time, it was always very backburner until [my husband and I] talked about it together, and what it could be like as a graphic novel. [We knew] that that could be a really good medium for showing more than I could ever tell just in words.

So few graphic novels have targeted young girls outside of manga in Japan. Was that on your and your husband's minds when you decided to do this?

It was. We knew that this would definitely appeal to girls probably much more than to boys. And it was on our minds, although we don't know whether this actually will have the effect that we hope in terms of getting girls interested in graphic novels.

Can you talk a bit about the work process between you and your husband? Who came up with the pictures versus the text; what came first?

The text definitely came first. What I had to do was start with a huge bulk of material and memories and experiences and all kinds of different things that could possibly be used. And that had to be edited down. I did it through tape recording a lot of storytelling and memories of my experiences, then typing up the tapes into transcripts, and then editing it down from there. Then we worked together on how to organize in terms of chapters and things that could possibly be shown. Then I wrote the text, and it had to go through the editing process with Richard Jackson, the editor. When we finally got to a draft of the text that was the go-ahead draft, my husband and I worked together on pictures.

In terms of the story itself, how emotionally difficult was it for you to relive a career that was cut short?

It was very difficult, actually. But I'm so glad I did it because I feel that I came out the other side really understanding much better what happened. But it was a bit painful at times.

You had a blurb on the book jacket from Maya Plisetskaya, the great Bolshoi ballerina whose performance so impressed you when you were nine.

I know! That was great! She lives in Germany and has a small dance foundation and we sent it to her and thought "this is a total long shot," but she actually did read it.

You stepped lightly, but still dealt with the issues of dieting and of physical injuries in the ballet world. Did you make a conscious decision about how to portray that?

There could be a "dark side" book about the experience, and I didn't want to do that. But I really did want it to have a little bit of the realistic picture of what [professional ballet is], not just "floating on air," or however it looks to people. That it is a very, very difficult life. But I didn't want to dwell on that.

Tell me about your life now, your organization One Three Two.

It's a research group I've been working with; I've had two attempts through workshops to get into the artistic side of dance with people and research and some of the more fundamental aspects of dance, though not ballet. I had a baby, and I haven't been working since he was born. Before that I was working at American Ballet Theatre, in a management and administration position where I was running their school and summer program.

Any plans for future books?

We are talking about it, but nothing concrete yet.

In ballet or out?

In.

Do you follow graphic novels as closely as your husband?

There are some that really move me, others that don't do anything for me.

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